Saturday, July 20, 2013

Weintraub collapsed last Wednesday from
heart complications. He was home alone with his golden retrievers, DaMa,
8, and Molly, 11, and Chloe, a 1-year-old pit bull-mix Weintraub and
his wife began fostering in April.

The retrievers, confined by collars that
respond to an invisible electric fence, cannot leave the yard, he said.
Weintraub never fit Chloe with a similar collar because she wouldn't
leave his side.

After Weintraub's collapse, however, Chloe
went down the family's long driveway, crossed a road and stopped in
front of a neighbor's house.

“As soon as I saw her at our fence, I knew
something was wrong,” neighbor Mike Brock said. “She never wanted
anything to do with us before.”

Afraid Chloe would be hit by a car, Brock,
his wife Michele, and daughters Melissa and Julianna, tried to calm the
dog, which paced nervously.

“As I'd get to her, she'd take off,” Brock
said. “But only a little ways, then she'd wait for me. In 15- to 20-foot
increments, she was leading me to Chuck.”

Chloe led Brock around the house where the retrievers greeted him, but not in their normal, playful way, Brock said.

“They were moving away from me,” Brock said.
“I'd say, ‘Hey, come back here,' and they'd move a little farther up
the hill. That's when I saw the bottom of Chuck's shoes.”

He yelled to his wife to call 911 and began
chest compressions on Weintraub. Another neighbor, a registered nurse,
rushed up the hill and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Throughout the rescue, Chloe laid in the uncut grass, her face inches away from Weintraub's, Michele Brock said.

Six days later, with a newly implanted pacemaker, Weintraub shook his head in disbelief.

“This dog was terrified, traumatized,” he
said. “She'd put her paws over her eyes and pretend the world wasn't
there, she was so scared. I can't believe she left the yard like that.”